I say.
She holds it an arm’s length away from herself and squints, muttering the words aloud. They sound different in her voice, different like I never wrote them, different like they came from another language. I snatch the poster from her hands.
“Why do you want a friend called Penelope?”
She stares at me, her face contorted. Even her nose frowns at me. I don’t know how to respond. I never know how to respond to people who want small complete sentences with one tidy meaning, I can’t explain myself to people who peer out windows and think they know the world.
“I just do,” I say.
I turn onto the North Circular Road holding my head high because that sounds dignified, but I trip on a bump in the footpath, so I lower my head. The first tree I pass looks unfriendly so I walk to the next one, which has kinder branches. I mash the poster hard against the bark and stand back. It looks a bit bare without a photo of a missing pet, but I can’t add a photo of Penelope until I know what she looks like. Two men walk by speaking in a foreign tongue. Their consonants come from the backs of their throats, and their words run headlong into one another like boisterous children. I try repeating their words aloud, and think how I would like to learn a language that almost no one else speaks, especially if the few who do speak it are old or almost dead. I start walking home, but home feels empty without Penelope and I’m distracted by the neon sign of my local fish bar. I’m not sure that I can call it my local anything if I’ve never gone into it, so I press my middle fingers alternately against the heels of my hands and whisper “safe safe safe” and walk inside. It smells bright, it smells hot, it smells good. A man with a shiny forehead looks up.
“What can I get you?”
I look at the menu on the wall behind the man, but there are too many choices and the words blur into one.
“Do you have chips?”
“Just put on a fresh batch—five minutes.”
I would like to drop pronouns and verbs as readily as this man, he seems so comfortable with his language.
“I’d like two bags please. Himself is hungry.”
I throw my eyes up to heaven and give a little snort, the way I’ve seen women do when they talk about their boyfriends and husbands. I won’t have the belly space for two bags of chips, but the man will think I have a “himself,” and I can reheat the leftovers tomorrow. I walk to one side and read the posters on the wall. There’s an ad for discounted meals, a programme for a local festival and a notice about a fundraiser for a smiling woman called Marie. More people come in and I sneak peeps at them to see how they’re dealing with this wait. One leans against the counter and two lean against the window; they look as if they were born to stand in fish bars. I try leaning against the wall, but I haven’t moved my feet and the top part of my body strains at an uncomfortable angle from my hips. A couple of the men are looking at their phones, so I reach into my pocket and pull out mine. I open my inbox, it contains one old message. I read it again.
Vivian,
Maud is getting worse, come to the hospital quickly.
Vivian.
This is the only unprompted message my sister has ever sent me, so I can’t delete it; it’s like a line from a family poem. My sister and I have the same name. She was born first and has more rights to the name; I whisper mine in apology. I would like a nickname, but nicknames must be given, not taken. I hear the soft thud of chips on paper.
“Salt and vinegar?”
“Yes, please.”
He hands me the bags and I pay. I clasp them tight, one in each hand, and walk home like I have won a grand potato prize. Next morning I wake to the voices of my neighbours, Mary and Bernie, talking outside. I get out of bed and open the curtains a jot, then I stand behind the curtain and watch. Mary and Bernie live on either side of me, like a sandwich. They are white sliced pan because they know everything, and I am mild cheddar.
“Lauren’s communion is on the twenty-first, I’m putting a bit by every week,” Bernie says.
She has the most great-grandchildren so she is superior.
“I’m looking forward to Shannon’s christening,” Mary shouts over her.
“They’ve booked the Skylon, should be a lovely day out—”
“—then Ryan’s wedding is on the twenty-eighth,” Bernie says.
“I’ve the dress got and all.”
They each talk as if the other wasn’t there. They would shove their words into the ears of a cockroach if they thought it would listen.
“Any word from herself?”
Mary nods in the direction of my house.
“Last I heard she’s advertising for a friend,” Bernie says.
“Jaysus.”
They shake their heads. At least they listen to each other when they’re talking about me. I stay as still as I can, still as a wall, still as a girl in a painting. I used to win musical statues in school, but here the prize is to be not-noticed. When Mary and Bernie have gone into their houses I watch the daytime people pass: elderly people in beige, women with prams, men in tracksuits. There’s a sudden smack of blue and the postman comes out of a house further down the terrace. He’s moving in and out of houses like a needle stitching a hem. He stops at my gate, looks at his bundle of letters and walks to the front door. I listen for the clatter of the letter box, then I run downstairs and look at the hall floor.
There are two envelopes: a large white one and a smaller brown one. My name is handwritten in looped, slanted letters on the brown envelope: “Vivian Lawlor.” It could be the name of a film star or a businesswoman in a suit or an Olympic gymnast—it could be anyone but me. I open it. A man called David from the Social Welfare office will pay me a visit on Wednesday. I put it down and pick up the second envelope and sniff, it doesn’t smell of people at all. I open it and stop reading after “To the House-holder.” Even though I don’t like the dead hope the envelope gives me, I like the fact that circulars are delivered to a street off the North Circular Road. I’d like to use this topic of conversation at the bus stop, but I can’t find a way to introduce it casually. I would need to get to a second conversation before I could announce those kinds of things.
I go into the kitchen and take a red bowl from the cupboard, because I need some red in my day. Then I take the least battered-looking spoon from the drawer—I want to wear out the cutlery evenly. Next I take out the box of cornflakes, scoop up a fistful and scrunch hard. I bring my fist to the bowl and open it, watching the orange silt form a small heap. I repeat the process three times then I pour in a good dash of milk until the corn dust is sodden, and eat. After breakfast, I go up to my bedroom and climb inside the wardrobe. I tap the wood at the back, but the door to Narnia hasn’t opened today so I close my eyes, feel around for a jumper and pair of jeans and climb out. I get dressed without adding water to my body or looking in a mirror. I want to grow into my smell. I want to grow out of my appearance. I want a smell-presence and a sight-absence. The mirrors were covered with sheets when my great-aunt died, and I haven’t uncovered them since. I pick up my bag, go downstairs and stand in the hall, listening. I time my comings and goings around my neighbours’ Mass trips, pension collections
